Doese anyone know of good data sources for retail supply and demand data for custom areas besides ESRI and Claritas?  

herb.holloway@selu.edu

Does anyone know where I can find local and state wide numbers regarding "Absenteeism and Turnover"?  Thanks.

alex@bgchamber.com

Has anyone heard of WIN Strategic Compass http://www.w-win.com/economicdevelopment/WINcompass/

Nancy McCrea

I am trying to run down a local statics/urban legend and either prove it right or wrong.  

Does anyone have any idea how I can find - at the city, county or MSA level -- the number of restaurants per capita?

Anne Piedmont 

What are the most recent policy briefs, white papers or any other related research performed that indicate what federal policies should be in regards to Urban Economic Development.
Thank you

Iryna
ihamkiv@blsstrategies.com

Has anyone heard anything about Congress de-funding (and therefore discontinuing) the SBIR program? SSTI is reporting on an apparent danger of SBIR funding being cut off: http://www.ssti.org/Digest/latesttext.htm

Joe Kulenovic
Enterprise Florida

I'm trying to get a sense of the relationship between covered employment and total employment. I know that not all workers are "covered" by unemployment insurance, and I've heard estimates that the ratio is something like 85% covered to 15% non-covered. Is there any documentation available that speaks to this, and does the non-covered portion include non-employer firms?

Thanks for any help,
Rob Allen
Pierce County

Do any other state agencies have a staff position dealing with Federal issues, grants or facilities? If so I am looking for a job description.

Nancy McCrea

Had a question from a community today interested in finding a good package for conducting fiscal impact analyses at the local level so they better assess the costs/benefits of local ED projects.  At one time the Federal Reserve had a Fiscal Impact Tool ("FIT") on their website I could refer communities to.  I'm not seeing that available anymore.  Any thoughts?  Thanks.

Rob McClintock

Vacant Address Data Set

The United States Postal Service tracks vacant addresses by Census tract for HUD. They have several breakdowns of the data. They just recently started to separate commercial and residential addresses. It may be an interesting way to look at your economy.

The data sets are not particularly user friendly but you may find them useful. The URL is:

http://www.huduser.org/DATASETS/usps.html

Larry Henson